Post the pandemic, the role of channel partners in real estate has increased manifold. With enhanced digital capabilities, channel partners now offer many value-added features that assist home buyers.
These include construction news and updates, reviews on projects, and personalised virtual tours, to mention a few, which have gained popularity among potential home buyers as they help them in making informed decisions.
In the new era of real estate, real estate developers and builders must have a robust channel partner strategy. Channel partners take ownership of projects and create significant opportunities for developers. Engaging with channel partners means gaining access to a broader customer base.
As the first pillar of sales, it is thus crucial that developers provide amenities and incentives with the right personal approach to motivate them and increase productivity. Here are some proven ways to do it.
Right training and support
Developers today are taking a “business associate” approach. Like any other stakeholder in the business, reputed builders go out of their way to provide value-based training that industry veterans conduct within the company. Training programmes help familiarise the partners with the product and, more importantly, groom them to reflect the brand’s value.
Periodical training is followed up with constant communication and regular updates via visits, phone/video calls, and text messages with the feet on the street with the point of contact from the developer’s end so that they can seek guidance about the brand or the product at any moment.
Apart from this, major developers also have a channel partner section on their websites that their channel partners can access for a complete digital download of all relevant information.
Robust and timely incentive policy
Channel partners are a vital link for developers to achieve targeted sales. Therefore, developers must consider market and project dynamics while structuring a robust incentive policy.
While some developers pay a higher percentage on brokerage for some lucrative projects, others are known to structure accelerated incentive programs with preferential pricing to drive sales.
Most importantly, timely delivery of brokerage (within a maximum of 45 days from completion of sales) creates a circle of trust and inspires loyalty among channel partners.
Maintain a personalised approach
As with any other business associate, cold monetary transactions cannot be the basis of relationships with channel partners. Developers, therefore, have attractive rewards and recognition programmes that acknowledge the success of their channel partners and reward them among industry peers.
Attractive rewards such as holidays to foreign destinations are regular features today. Further, dates of personal importance such as birthdays, anniversaries and other milestones are acknowledged and celebrated. This helps maintain a unique bond and strengthens the emotional connection between developers and channel partners.
Today, channel partners have a more significant bearing on customers than builder representatives themselves and demand a work ethic from developers based on transparency, clarity, and clear communication.
Therefore, a developer’s goal is to drive efficiencies among channel partners by making them feel like an extension of the brand. The methods mentioned above are tried and tested to develop robust channel partner relationships.